Handle colorblindness with sensitivity

Thursday

Mar 31, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Q: How does colorblindness affect a child or young adult's development?

Dr. Sylvia Rimm

Q: How does colorblindness affect a child or young adult's development?

A: There's no doubt that colorblindness can have a dramatic effect on young children if parents and teachers aren't sensitive to their problems. You can easily imagine young children may feel really bad and "dumb" when asked to select something that's red. Instead, they choose something that's brown because they really can't see the difference. In many ways, children who are colorblind suffer similar struggles to those who have learning disabilities.

By young adulthood, color plays a reduced part in instruction, and no doubt friends and family have learned to allow for their colorblindness. Mismatched socks may even become a fashion statement. Most importantly, young adults would be less likely to feel intellectually inadequate based on their inabilities to distinguish shades of colors and would easily adapt — even laugh about their problem without shame. There's no doubt they occasionally have regrets about missing a color others can see, but most don't worry too much about the loss.

I found the following recommendations for teachers on how to help colorblind children in the classroom. I believe this advice would be helpful for parents, as well. If you're a parent of a colorblind child, you may wish to share this with your child's teacher. Author Dr. Terrace L. Waggoner granted permission for use.

How can teachers help if a child has a color deficiency?

Label a picture with words or symbols when the response requires color recognition. Label coloring utensils (crayons, colored pencils and pens) with the name of the color. Use white chalk, not colored chalk, on the board to maximize contrast. Avoid yellow, orange or light tan chalk on green chalkboards. Xerox parts of textbooks or any instructional materials printed with colored ink. Black print on red or green paper is not safe. It may appear as black on black to some color deficient students. Assign a classmate to help color deficient students when assignments require color recognition. Example: color coding different countries on a world map. Teach color deficient students the color of common objects. Knowing what color things are can help them in their daily tasks. Example: When asked to color a picture, they will know to use the crayon "labeled" green for the grass, blue for the sky and light tan for Lincoln's face. Try teaching children "all" the colors. Remember, most color deficient children can identify pure primary colors. It is normally just different shades or tints that give them problems. If they cannot learn certain colors, let them know you understand some colors look the same to them, and it is "OK." Make sure a child's color vision has been tested before they have to learn their colors or color-enhanced instructional materials are used.

Be sure to check Dr. Waggoner's website for further information at www.colorvisiontesting.com.